The Middle Ages

Turning 40 a couple of months ago was a life changing moment. It’s not a big deal for most people, and I had the good fortune to see how many of my friends who shared the birth year of 1974 were handling it. For most it seemed to have passed off without incident, some made plaintive ‘where’s the time gone?’ messages on social media, and some seemed to be in the throes of a full-on mid-life crisis. My reaction was somewhere in the middle of the latter two.

In essence I realise now that I was passing through the stages of the Kubler-Ross model, otherwise known as the ‘five stages of grief’. The stages are (in this order) denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

To be fair, I was in denial for an impossibly long time. Friends and associates joked about my forthcoming birthday for a good few months beforehand and I, on the face of it laughed it off. After all, it was just a joke, I couldn’t really be 40 could I? I still feel about, oh what, 21 on a good day? 24 maybe, at an absolute push. My looks have barely changed. Yes, there’s the odd grey hair and my skin isn’t quite as youthful as it once was, but essentially I’m still as fresh as a daisy aren’t I?

This abject inability to be stoic and accepting in the face of incontrovertible evidence was challenged to the maximum a few days before my birthday when some work colleagues decided, as it was the last day we’d all be in the office before I descended into my fifth decade, to decorate my desk and other locations in the building with ‘Happy 40^th Birthday’ style messages, balloons, photos off Facebook, etc. You get the picture.

To say I suffered a sudden sense of humour failure would be an understatement. This is where I shifted from denial to anger.

I was appalled and horrified. To put it bluntly, and I did in a loud voice as I entered the office, “I’m thirty-fucking-nine!!!!”. I couldn’t believe that my image was everywhere declaring to the world that I am old, old enough to be the father, nay the grandfather (if I were a guest on the ‘Jeremy Kyle Show’) of most people I worked with and therefore past it, not worth bothering about, unattractive and virtually dead. As you can guess, I wasn’t thinking in a particularly rational manner at the time.

This of course didn’t stop people wishing me premature birthday greetings for the entire day. After about an hour or so my seething resentment towards the perpetrators subsided a little and rather than hoping that they would all drop into a localised sink hole as penance for their mockery I began to accept this situation with better grace than when I first arrived. To be fair, no-one meant any harm and we all went out for lunch and there was a birthday cake and gifts and, well, even I could see that I was being unnecessarily churlish in the face of such unbridled kindness and bonhomie.  

To be fair, this was as far as the anger went as the rest of the world was allowing me to be thirty-nine right up to the last minute and, for some reason, that seemed to be incredibly important.

After anger comes bargaining. When people are facing a premature end to their existence they plead with their chosen God for a few more years in exchange for living a reformed life. For me, this meant that I needed to review and re-assess my life so far with the help of an appropriate icon from my belief system. So I went for a pint.

From this discussion with, admittedly, several pints of ale I drew up what is commonly referred to as a ‘bucket list’. As this implies impending death I chose to label mine as a ‘things to do’ list, which is so much less threatening. It turned out to be more of a challenge than I had first thought as I opted initially to keep my list of things achievable. I reasoned that there was really no point in creating any more unfulfilled ambitions than I already had as that way madness and a return to anger lies.

Firstly I began to think of places I’d never been to. For no good reason my first thought was, ‘Well, I’ve never been to Oxford’, so it went on the list. It wasn’t however an illustrious start and before I found myself drawing up a list of various locations around the UK that I had neither visited nor ever wanted to visit I moved on to think of things I’d never done and would like to do. The list has now grown and evolved and includes very achievable things like lighting one of those floating lantern things to visiting Finland.

The depression part of the Kubler-Ross model never really kicked in, other than bemoaning the fact that some of the things on the list may prove to be incredibly costly, so ‘win the EuroMillions’ was added. I’m not sure if it is a legitimate addition but what the hell.

This makes me realise that I have now reached acceptance. I’m 40, I have plans, and no matter how wild or how mundane they may appear to be to the outside world I will strive to tick them off before I fall off my perch. This is assuming that I don’t fall from the said perch anytime soon. Well I could be run over by a bus tomorrow, although probably not where I live given the infrequency of the service.

Enough of this pessimism, after all, the only way is Finland.

Or Iceland.

Or the United States.

Or Oxford.